This article discussed the stereotypes people have about individuals with Dwarfism. Dwarfism is a rare condition. It only affects 1 in 25,000 people. However, many stereotypes still exist for people with this condition. Social psychologists decided to do a study on people without Dwarfism in order to find out what people really think of dwarves.
The study began by giving people stereotypical words people associate with Dwarves. They were asked to pick the words they thought were culturally thought about dwarfism. The next test, they were asked about personal beliefs about dwarves. The study showed interesting results. The stereotypical portion of the test resulted in mostly negative traits being picked. These words included weird, incapable, and childlike. However, in the personal beliefs portion, the words were mostly positive. The words used here included capable, intelligent and kind. A third test was also given, though, through an open ended method. These results were much more mixed between positive and negative thoughts.
Personally, I do not know any people with dwarfism. The only things I know about them I saw on TV. Little People, Big World was a show my mom used to watch. It showed the lives of a family where the mother, father and one son were dwarves. It was interesting to watch and showed a lot of people that they lived life pretty much the same way as anyone else. However, some TV shows and movies can show dwarves in a stereotypical light (oompa loompas for example).
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